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The Political Gets Personal

That moment when you realize that the State Department change dropping the requirement that you have genital reassignment surgery in order to change your gender on your passport will likely be repealed under a Trump administration, and you frantically look at the calendar to see if there’s enough time after the name/gender court order gets issued to get your passport changed before your overseas trip at the end of the year.

Rationally I know it would probably be OK, because I only need the wait until mid-February for all the various travel to be done with.

OTOH, Trump just announced that the head of his domestic agenda transition team is a guy from the Family Research Council, a virulently anti-gay, anti-trans extremist hate group that’s one the key organizations that has been pushing the trans bathroom predator/bathroom bill agenda.

Fortunately there a regional passport office in San Francisco where you can do walk-in rush service, although you have demonstrate that you’ve got an imminent trip. The big hitch is that you need to get your Social Security info changed first. Pretty sure the latter requires a court order, but need to double check (I’m at a conference and just haven’t had a chance to do so). Having a friend who temp’d at the passport office talk to people he knows there, to hopefully find out more.

When I filed the name change petition they said it usually takes about three weeks to get a hearing. Which would leave a week’s window before I go under the three-week advanced period for booking a flight, afterwards airline prices start jumping. OTOH, worse case it’s only the flight to Buenos Aires that’s affected, so I could eat the extra cost if needed.

When I get the hearing date info I’ll also call the court and see if there’s any way to get them to expedite the hearing date.

There’s also been some local lawyers offering pro bono work to help with trans name changes, so it may be worth a call to one of them.